I've had an obsession with chocolate cupcakes lately. It was definitely inspired by Anne's post a little while ago that mentioned the yellow kind, with white frosting. What exactly is yellow flavored box cake? Don't get me wrong, I like it... but it's now exactly vanilla, it's not exactly butter. Hmmm. Oh well. I guess it's kind of like the blue Slurpee.

I started to lean towards chocolate cupcakes because I saw an episode of America's Test Kitchen about chocolate sheet cake. The geeky host, Christopher Kimball, although he has no charisma whatsoever, has begun to grow on me. Although I'm convinced that one of the test chefs, Bridget, hates him. Today, when he stated that someone suggested using a beater from a hand mixer to ream a lemon, she blurted, "Were they drunk???" And not in the giggly joking way. But I digress. Back to the chocolate sheet cake...

You know the kind... the moist, spongy chocolate cake from your childhood with the caramelly sweet gooey frosting. Not the ultra dark and dense Scharffenberger style cake that has been in vogue as of late. I'm thinking of the kind you get from the supermarket, that you can actually eat a huge piece of. Well, I tried the recipe, and converted it to cupcakes. I wound up leaving the cupcakes in the oven a bit longer than I should have, so they were a tad drier than I would have liked, but there were actually pretty good. It was actually a pain to find dutch process cocoa... I already had Valhrona, Scharffenberger and some kind of artisan cocoa powder on hand, but none were Dutch process. After much searching at Andronico's and Whole Foods, I finally found Droste Dutch Process at Trader Joe's. There was some silly looking rain forest dutch process cocoa at Whole Foods, but I didn't trust it. I also bought some Van Houten cocoa powder, but it's unclear whether or not it's Dutch process. The tin was just too cute to pass up. Now, the recipe calls for using both cocoa powder and chocolate. I used Scharffenberger semi-sweet, (which, in comparison to other chocolates, is actually bittersweet) so it turned out a bit dark. Not bad at all, but not what I was looking for. The frosting was really good too, but also too dark fpr what I was seeking. I used Callebaut semisweet, instead of milk. In order to balance out the bitterness, I sprinkled fleur de sel on top. Sounds weird, but it actually works pretty well! I had also tried sprinkling chopped macadamias, and their saltiness is what gave me the idea. Anyways, I will try again next week with Callebaut semi sweet and milk. Ah, Callebaut. In baking chocolatey things, Scharffenberger has a nice tannic acidity that goes really well with a California Cabernet Sauvignon, and Valrhona has a nearly floral-fruity bitterness that's good with Bordeaux, but for the sweet tooth who just wants good old classic tall glass of milk to go with it, Callebaut is perfect. Which is why I will always fall back on it. Haven't yet tried El Rey. Maybe soon.